Clemson business takes leap into new 'north campus'

Clemson University preparing for new College of Business building. Dean of the College of Business Bobby McCormick and others show an example of what people will see when it opens in January 2020.
Ken Ruinard/Independent Mail

Bobby McCormick, right, dean of Clemson University's College of Business, meets with Meg Bishop, left, and vendor Spencer Ackerman in a room in Sirrine Hall re-outfitted to show what the college's future office space will look and feel like. McCormick said he wanted to test out the high-tech furnishings and windows that will be part of a new building for the business college that is scheduled to open in January 2020 just below the old Clemson House's demo site along State 93. The university will host a ceremonial ground-breaking for the new $87 million College of Business on Friday, Oct. 27, 2017.(Photo: Ken Ruinard/Independent Mail)

CLEMSON — Bobby McCormick has been around Clemson University long enough to remember when Sirrine Hall, current home of the College of Business, was a working cotton mill for textile engineering students.

"This room was a spinning mill," McCormick says, standing in a small lounge outside his office in Sirrine. "There was no air conditioning. You could tell when they started it up. They pumped in steam to keep the cotton pliable."

Set in the middle of campus just behind the historic home, Fort Hill, of university founder Thomas Clemson, Sirrine Hall has for the better part of eight decades sat on prime real estate at the center of campus.

Clemson University's Sikes Hall, home of the president's office, faces State 93 at the northern border of campus. The school's College of Business will break ground across the highway on Friday, Oct. 27, 2017, marking a shift northward of the university's academic facilities.(Photo: Anna B. Mitchell)

But Clemson University is growing — and, McCormick explains, shifting northward beyond State 93, a roadway that for decades has served as the academic campus' northern border. Sikes Hall and Tillman Hall have stood sentinel there for more than a century.

The College of Business, Clemson's fastest growing college and second only in majors to the College of Engineering, Computing and Applied Sciences, must lead the university's physical transformation, he said.

"Clemson has re-centered itself," McCormick said.

To that end, Clemson has secured approval for a new, $87 million home for the College of Business that will stand directly across State 93 from Sikes. The as-yet-unnamed building's ceremonial ground-breaking takes place at 1 p.m. Friday, and the event is open to the public.

McCormick said he wants people to see and understand the significance of what he describes as "the most important building to be erected at Clemson in 100 years." The $87 million price tag will be covered primarily with state appropriations and institutional bonds, according to Clemson, but about $22 million must be raised privately.

WHAT: Groundbreaking ceremony for Clemson's $87 million College of Business

WHEN: 1-2 p.m. Friday, Oct. 27

WHERE: State 93 directly across from Bowman Field; shuttles will transport ground-breaking participants at noon from public parking lot R6 to the site.

New campus entrance

At 176,000 square feet, the business college will be Clemson's first academic structure north of State 93 — on a hillside just below the soon-to-be-demolished Clemson House. Campus planners envision it as the first in a series of academic buildings for the newly dubbed north campus, which at full build-out will exceed 600,000 square feet.

"The College of Business is the center and future of Clemson University," McCormick said. "Look at where the building is going and who is producing the largest number of students."

It will also be the first academic building most motorists driving into Clemson will see — a glass and Clemson-brick structure whose two towers will rise out of a hillside, a broad staircase cascading down between them. Up until recent years the university's presence north of 93, consisted only of the alumni center, the Clemson Foundation offices, the soon-to-be-demolished Clemson House and the now-gone bungalows at Douthit Hills for married students.

Clemson University's future College of Business, whose artist's rendering is visible here on a cell phone, will be located just below the old Clemson House, in the background. Clemson House still stands atop a hill along State 93 but will be torn down. The $87 million project is one of the most important academic structures to be constructed on campus in a century, said the business college dean, Bobby McCormick.(Photo: Ken Ruinard/Independent Mail)

Already well under way is the 650,000-square-foot Douthit Hills dorm project, which is next door to the future business college. Douthit should be finished by the middle of 2018 and will include a bookstore and dining space for students at that end of campus.

Architect Scott May of LS3P Associates in Greenville, who is on the building's design team and graduated from Clemson in 1981, said that between the more than 3,500 business students hanging around the new college, the 1,650 students who will be living at Douthit and thousands more in private apartment buildings going up in downtown Clemson this year, the north campus will spring to life.

"It's really going to change the campus," he said.

Clemson University's $212 million Douthit Hills project, which includes 1,650 student beds and retail space, will be complete some time in the middle of 2018 and is next door to the future College of Business along State 93.(Photo: Anna B. Mitchell)

Clemson University's $212 million, 650,000-square-foot Douthit Hills project, which includes 1,650 student beds and retail space, will be complete some time in the middle of 2018 and is next door to the future College of Business along State 93.(Photo: Anna B. Mitchell)

The business college, meanwhile, has badly outgrown its space at Sirrine — only about half of its courses are taught there, the rest in classrooms scattered around campus. The future business building's square footage is twice that of Sirrine, and McCormick envisions students spending their whole day there when it opens for classes in early 2020. The new building will house about 20 classrooms, 150 faculty offices and multiple spaces for serendipitous meetings.

Clemson's growing national prominence, helped along by a football championship last year, saw applications to the university rise by 12 percent last year, McCormick said. Meanwhile, applications to the business college — every applicant must designate a college — jumped 14 percent, he said, suggesting a continuation of the college's growth relative to the university as a whole.

Forty percent of the college's applicants were from outside South Carolina, too, the highest percentage among the university's colleges.

"Clemson means business," McCormick said. "Everywhere you look, the College of Business has had a profound impact on Clemson. Eight out of 13 of the Clemson trustees graduated from the business school; so did our university's CFO. Gov. Nikki Haley — she was a graduate, too."

Susie Edwards, left, of Charleston, a 1989 business accounting graduate from Clemson, walks with incoming freshman Jenna Bolding, middle, of Greenville and her mother, Diana Bolding, right, a 1991 Clemson University marketing graduate, during a tour of the College of Business at Sirrine Hall on Oct. 20, 2017.(Photo: Ken Ruinard/Independent Mail)

The university, which most recently achieved a No. 23 ranking in U.S. News and World Report among public universities, still aspires to be a top-20 school, McCormick said, and much of the work to compete and improve happens at the college level. Clemson University consists of seven colleges all told.

"The business school has to be highly ranked in order for Clemson to be a top university," McCormick said.

Though tops in South Carolina according to College Choice's annual ranking of online institutions, Clemson's undergraduate business program still trails in national rankings behind those in neighboring states, including the Terry School of Business at Georgia and the Kenan-Flagler Business School in North Carolina. The Darla Moore School of Business at University of South Carolina also has a higher-ranking MBA program, No. 71 nationally according to U.S. News & World Report, while Clemson's MBA program did not make the rankings.

"Most of the top 10 schools have recently done buildings," May said.

The soon-to-be-demolished Clemson House sits atop a hill along State 93 that is the future site of the university's College of Business. A parking lot is planned for the site where the old student dorm now stands.(Photo: Anna B. Mitchell)

Kelby Jordan, a 21-year-old senior financial management major, said that although Clemson has traditionally been known as an engineering school, business is gaining momentum. Only about half of those who apply get into the business college, according to Clemson data, and of those who come, their SAT scores average out at 1243.

The business college's office of student enrichment, its study abroad opportunities, alumni connection program Tiger Ties, capstone courses and regular workshops on standing out as a job candidate — all contribute toward student success, Jordan said.

“The business school has to be highly ranked in order for Clemson to be a top university.”

Bobby McCormick, dean of the Clemson University College of Business

"To be like the best business programs in nation, we have to expand, growing our buildings, technology, programs and classroom space," Jordan said.

The Dacula, Ga., native said he received a job offer on Aug. 30 from Bank of America in Charlotte, N.C., and accepted it three days later. Jordan credits his alumni mentor — who convinced him to change his major from marketing two years ago and personally drove him to his interview in Charlotte — for securing the position.

"I love Clemson and I would choose it again if I had to do it again," Jordan said.

The soon-to-be-demolished Clemson House sits atop a hill along State 93 that is the future site of the university's College of Business. The college will break ground on the $87 million, 171,000-square-foot building on Friday, Oct. 27, 2017.(Photo: Anna B. Mitchell)

Honoring Clemson's tradition

A design committee that includes former university president and architect Jim Barker continues to hash out final design details for the College of Business.

"The location is so prominent, it requires that level of care," said Andy Sherman, president of Sherman Construction. "I think now the biggest challenge has been developing what the building is going to be. What's the story of the building?"

DPR Construction out of Redwood City, Calif., is leading construction work, and Sherman Construction out of Greenville is lending local assistance. Similarly, LMN Architects of Seattle is leading the building's design while May of LS3P Associates is the local architect of record.

The structure will be on a hillside, meaning the eastern wall of its ground floor will be partially underground while the western wall will have full sunlight. An outdoor staircase will bisect the building's two towers, which will connect through the partially buried ground floor. So what looks like two buildings is actually one, May said.

May said Barker suggested modeling the stairs between the towers after the famous Spanish Steps in Rome, which connect a church and two plazas along a steep slope. The broad Clemson steps will also connect in a straight line to a pedestrian corridor from the far end of Douthit Hills, providing an unobstructed view of Tillman Hall from thousands of feet away.

"I think they did a fabulous job tying into the Clemson tradition," Sherman said. "Even down to the materials, it does look like part of Clemson."

Official construction may start Friday, but it will not conclude for at least two years, McCormick said. The planned move-in date is spring 2020, so freshmen now will be around to take classes there, he said.

"It is the entrance of Clemson campus," May said. "It has to remind everybody what Clemson stands for and who they are. We're not going to fast just to go fast."

Clemson University is building an $87 million College of Business on a hillside in front of the old Clemson House and directly across State 93 from Bowman Field. The 171,000-square-foot academic space is part of the university's reorientation of campus, along with the Douthit Hills development, northward across the highway.(Photo: Provided)